


game over

by laufire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dom/sub Undertones, Explicit Sexual Content, Leader Alec Lightwood, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 11:30:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13122816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laufire/pseuds/laufire
Summary: "That proves you should listen to me more often. All the time, actually.""From now on I will," he joked, "one hundred percent. You say jump and I say how high and how far. I'm completely at your mercy." Famous last words.





	game over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mightierthanthecanon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightierthanthecanon/gifts).



> This starts after 214, but deviates from canon a little before that (basically, it goes as if Alec and Magnus hadn't reconciled in 213 and Jace hadn't gone to the Seelie Court).

Jace carried with another round of drinks to the table where both Lightwood siblings awaited him. Alec was distracted, with his eyes lost in the distance and a slight smile on his face. Whatever happened in that Council meeting, he was pleased, despite everything. Isabelle, meanwhile, still had that bittersweet and tired look in her eyes.

As he took his seat, Jace gave her the glass with an understanding smile she barely returned.

"To be single, and ready to mingle." He said ironically, raising his beer.

Alec snorted, bending over the table to toast with him. Isabelle just grimaced imperceptibly and drank a sip of water without a word. 

The three of them drank in silence, each too absorbed with their own concerns. To be honest, Jace would rather maintain a healthy state of denial with his own emotional problems, thank you very much. Heartbreak or not, he didn't want to be the type of guy that would get in the middle of someone else's relationship. And just like that, he was at a crossroad with no idea of what to do next.

"We're too hot. We shouldn't have to deal with rejection." He philosophized. 

That, at least, got a small laugh out of Isabelle. Alec, of course, rolled his eyes. In truth, Alec was the least affected of them all by a broken heart -he'd spent years after years dreaming with leading the Institute, and he'd thrown himself into it as he did with everything else: he was a hundred an ten percent in, and probably didn't give himself one single second to think in couples drama.

"I think we won't be the life of the party tonight," said Isabelle, "so I'll just go to bed."

Alec and Jace stood up to leave with her, as Jace finished his bear with one gulp. They walked together to the Institute and accompanied Isabelle to her room.

"Hey," said Alec, hugging her and kissing her at the top of her head, "you'll be fine, okay?"

She nodded and wished them good night. Alec and Jace started walking together on the corridors. Soon he noticed Alec wasn't walking towards his room, but to his office. That was alright with him, because he didn't felt like going to sleep yet. 

"Do you know what I realized during my brief moment of fame as Head of the Institute?" he rambled, finally saying something he'd been pondering for days, "I' _suck_ at making decisions for others."

Alec's laugh at that echoed in the Institute's walls. 

"Yeah, yeah." He dismissed it with his hand. "You're good at it, though. The first truly good action I made in the last month was probably your first order."

"That proves you should listen to me more often. All the time, actually."

"From now on I will," he joked, "one hundred percent. You say jump and I say how high and how far. I'm completely at your mercy."

"That's a lot of power."

"I know it won't get to your head. You're good at this."

Alec stopped in his tracks in the middle of the hallway, squinting his eyes and looking at him like he was trying to say if he was serious or not. Jace had mostly been joking, but he wasn't going to be the one to back out, so he looked back defiantly, with his best shit-eating grin on his face. 

"Do a cartwheel."

Jace did it without pause, looking incredibly smug.

"Now a backflip."

He was satisfied when he landed perfectly, despite the few beers he'd taken.

"Okay, maybe it _will_ get to your head a little."

* * *

The next morning, Alec woke him up at the same ungodly hour he always did, the sadistic asshole. He decided his breakfast for him and gave him a workout table for training. Isabelle had contemplated the scene puzzled, and probably a little disturbed. 

Jace hadn't argued back, but if the order allowed even the smallest loophole, he took advantage of it without hesitation. They spent the better part of the day with that game of cat and mouse around the building, and Jace had to admit it'd been a long while since he had that much fun. Or that Alec had fun at all, period.

Most of his orders centered around useful chores: training, paperwork. Things Alec would've ordered anyway, as Head of the Institute. Others just seemed made to annoy him, and those were the ones Jace tried to challenge, within the given directions.

When the time to go out to patrol came, Jace realized he had been so preoccupied with that pantomime, he hadn't needed to stop himself from wallowing in his feelings at all. 

* * *

After the mission, Jace felt he needed a moment to himself. He was probably overreacting, he thought. If it had happened any other day, he'd think nothing of it. But it wasn't any other day, so it bothered him.

Alec had made the right call. The results, if nothing else, proved that. Jace was about to take a risk, and he made a safer call. It had happened a million times before.

The difference was the outcome, because most of those times, Jace hadn't listened. Sometimes, it was a good decision; others, not so much. But what was bugging him is that he'd reacted to the order instinctively, when his instincts were what used to give him that _boost_ , what had made him so great at what he did.

He was totally overthinking it. In any case, the night had been a success, so he was going to celebrate it.

Or so he thought, until Maia served him a glass of water.

"Lightwood said you'd be drinking this?"

He snorted, amused. The pranks he could deal with. Maia looked at him, weirded out.

"He's my new boss. I'm supposed to do everything he says." He told her, flippant.

"Kinky." She deadpanned, and left before he could get any word in about it.

* * *

That night, Alec stopped by his room. 

"Go to sleep. You're going to need it, because tomorrow I will _beat your ass_ at training."

"It's that a command?"

"Hell yeah."

Just when Alec was about to close the door after himself, Jace, without thinking it twice, sneaked inside. Alec stared him down, eyes full of suspicion.

"It is true. _This_ ," he said, pointing between them, "is a little kinky."

"What are you trying to pull right now?" Alec said, crossing his arms.

Jace walked to him, until he could feel Alec's breath on his face, until they were almost touching.

"Do you know what a colossally bad idea this would be?" As he said that, Alec tapped his own _parabatai_ rune over his shirt.

"It's only illegal if we're in love. And we aren't in love, right?"

But that wasn't the whole truth, was it? Alec was, or at the very least had been, until very recently. And if he was ever curious, or often thought about missing opportunities...

Well. It was better not to dwell on it.

"Right."

Jace licked his lips, and kept walking ahead until Alec's legs hit his bed. And then Jace kissed him, making them both fall all the way.

The kiss was bruising, passionate. Jace's hands wandered under Alec's shirt and Alec's hands pulled at his hair as he pressed his bodies together, and it was every bit as perfect as he'd always imagined.

And then, as if the fog had dissipated on his brain, Alec pushed him away.

"This is- no. This is a bad idea, Jace. Go, _please_."

"Alec-"

"I said _leave_ , Jace."

It felt as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown over him, and it stopped Jace in his tracks.

"Okay. Okay. I'll leave. Okay." He yielded, unable to look Alec in the eye.

* * *

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. About Max, and about going to Idris without warning you."

He wanted to think he'd done it for noble reasons, and that was part of it, sure. But maybe he'd been a bit angry, and vindictive, and it could've ended in the worst possible way if it wasn't for Isabelle.

"Look, I don't have time for this right now," Alec said, putting on a jacket as he walked towards the Institute's exit, "I need to bring Magnus and see if he can do anything."

"Magnus?" Only after he asked, he realized how he'd sounded.

"Are you serious right now?"

"I know. Sorry. Again." He relented. "It's just- can we talk? Later?"

Alec's expression softened, and he nodded.

"Sure." He rested a hand on Jace's shoulder, sliding it down slowly until their hands touched for an instant, and the gesture, out there in the open, somehow felt more intimate than their kiss had.

* * *

Waiting inside Alec's office without him there felt wrong to Jace, even if the office had only belonged to him for a hot second. 

Maybe because Alec had clearly made a home out of what was supposed to be an impersonal space. Maybe because it never truly fit him.

Alec walked in, seemingly surprised to see him there.

"Hey."

"Hey." He echoed. "We said we'd talk, remember?"

Alec went to sit on his desk, giving him the universal "go ahead" gesture with his hand. 

"So, did you and Magnus reconcile?"

Not at all what he'd meant to say, what the fuck.

"Why would we?" He asked, confused. "We fought, actually."

"Oh." He tried not to look too relieved at that, but he probably failed. "About the Sword?"

"Is _that_ what you wanted to talk about?"

"Right. Yeah. Sorry again, for disobeying you about Idris."

And that _wasn't_ what he'd meant to say, either.

"I guess I didn't explicitly tell you _not_ to go to Idris."

"It was in the spirit of the law," He said, flippant.

"And what, you want me to punish you?"

"Now _that_ ," he said, sitting down on the chair in front of Alec and leaning over the table, "that is  _really_ kinky."

"You're a little shit."

"Then punish me." He fired back, batting his eyelashes.

"I wouldn't even know where to start. Do I spank you, tell you to write some lines?"

"I could write some lines."

"Alright." He snorted, shaking his head, and spread blank pages over the table. "How about ' _I acted like a reckless idiot and I promise it won't happen again_ '?

Jace stood up and went to sit on Alec's chair, but he pushed it back.

"Yessir." He teased him, and started writing it down.

When he saw Alec walk to the door and write a few runes on it, a shiver went through his body.

As he wrote, Alec went to stand behind him, putting his hands on Jace's hips and sneaking them under his shirt. Jace pressed against him, gasping when Alec leaned down to nuzzle his neck, and gently nipped at the lobe of his ear.

"What made you change your mind?"

"Shut up and keep writing."

"As if."

Jace turned on his heel, envolving Alec in a deep, wet kiss. 

"I thought this was supposed to be about punishment."

"But all along, it was about sex."

Alec gave him another quick kiss and took off Jace's shirt in one swift move. He started kissing down his lobe, his neck, his collarbone, his chest; and then he made Jace almost jump when he, without further consideration, sneaked a hand down his pants and started palming his cock.

Feeling he was being left behind, he rushed to take off Alec's clothes too, throwing his shirt across the room. When he started to undo his pants, Alec stopped him with a slow kiss that left him trembling and gasping for air.

"I think," he said, voice rough, "this is the part where you sexily throw everything over the table and have your wicked way with me."

"No way."

Jace watched amused as Alec took one by one all the objects over the desk, neatly putting them on the drawers. When he was done, he opened the last one, pulling out a condom and a bottle of lube.

Jace tried not to think about how long he'd have that there. Or with whom it might've been used.

" _Now_ I have my wicked way with you."

Jace sat on the desk, leaning back and letting Alec put his pants down. He looked curious as Alec opened the lube and started using it to prepare him. It was an odd feeling, but not at all unpleasant.

"You can use more than one, you know."

"Who was in charge here?" Alec asked, lightly slapping his cheek.

"Did you _literally_ spank me?" 

"It has to be _at least_ a little bit about punishment."

Jace laughed, delighted, and pulled him closer for a kiss. Alec's fingers were sending shivers through his whole body, but when he withdrew them, he tensed with anticipation.

Alec held him down, one hand on his hip, the other on his chest, while he entered him. No pain came, just an overwhelming feeling of _too much_ , as if he were being touched everywhere at once.

"If you aren't going to write it, you could at least say it out loud."

By the Angel, he'd never heard Alec sound so breathless.

"Something about- being less reckless on the field?"

Couldn't he move already?

"All of it."

"I was- a reckless idiot? And I promise to- _never_ do it again."

Only then Alec started to move inside him. Jace surrounded him with his legs, pulled him in with a kiss, tried to touch him everywhere he could. By the time Alec started touching his cock, up and down, he was halfway there anyway. 

He came; he'd heard the phrase "so hard I saw stars", and cheesy or not, he was sure he'd blacked out for half a second. Alec pulled back, and Jace raised, still lightheaded, to kiss him again. Alec was still hard, so he fumbled with his hand, bringing him to the orgasm in a frankly awkward angle. 

Even after he came, they kept kissing for what felt like minutes. Alec finished it with a peck on the corner of his lips, and went to grab something from a drawer. When he saw that it was a pack of wipes, Jace barked with laughter.

"You are _so_ efficient."

"I'm not the Head of the Institute for nothing." 

* * *

Jace still felt overwhelmed with pain after the fight on the bridge as Alec leaned over him to give him an _iratze_. 

He distracted himself getting lost in Alec's concentrated face, in the worried rictus of his mouth, in how long his eyelashes were.

"Remember when you promised me you'd be less of a reckless idiot?"

Jace laughed so hard it hurt.

* * *

Jace didn't remember anything of the time he'd been dead. A blessing, most likely, but he couldn't shake the odd feeling that he'd been, for one moment in his whole life, at something akin to _peace_. 

And that it wouldn't be too long before the other shoe dropped. 

He knocked on Alec's office and waited to be called in, with that shadow of paranoia still following over his shoulder.

"Did you call me?"

"Yes, please, sit down."

Alec was writing something on his laptop, probably a report of the day. Jace squirmed in his seat. He wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, to be honest.

"Are you going to tell me what happened to our runes?" He asked, without moving his eyes from the screen.

"I don't know, Alec. I didn't feel anything. Maybe it was the summoning, maybe it- blocked the connection somehow."

"Right." The look Alec directed him was so full of skepticism he had to clear his throat, uncomfortable. "I've been thinking," he said next, pointing between them, "and I think we should reconsider this whole thing."

"Are you breaking up with me?" He said, going for nonchalant and missing by half a mile.

"That would require _dating_." He deadpanned. "And we can't do that, remember? We can't be in love."

 _Too late_.

"But we can have fun."

Alec scoffed at that, looking amused despite himself.

"Right. But I mean the whole, bossing around thing. When I give orders about our mission, you will obey them, because I am your superior officer. But outside of that, it's been just a game, and I think it's counterproductive. Especially if you aren't going to answer the one question I do have."

"Nothing happened, Alec."

"My rune disappeared, Jace. I literally felt you were dying."

"I obviously didn't."

Alec sighed, rubbing his temples. Jace wasn't completely sure of why he couldn't tell him the truth, but it was as if a voice in his head kept telling him it wasn't safe. That kind of knowledge was dangerous, and he didn't want to put Alec in that position. 

"Okay." Alec said, apparently giving up. Knowing him, not for long. "You can go now, I'll meet you all at the bar."

Jace didn't want to leave things between them there, so he stood up and circled the desk, stopping next to Alec.

"Come on," he said, lowering his voice, "you can finish that later."

Alec spun in his chair, leaving them facing each other.

"Still a little shit."

"Hell yes." 

Jace sat on his lap, surrounding him with his arms, and kissed him as slow and as tender as he felt he needed.

"I will find out, you know." Alec warned.

"There's nothing to find out."

Someone knocked on the door, making his heart stop for a second. He and Alec looked at each other with undiluted panic in their eyes. 

"We're leaving now," Clary said through the door, "are you ready?"

"In a minute. Wait for us outside."

Jace couldn't breathe until he stopped hearing her steps.

"You're aware that if it'd been Izzy, she'd just barged in, right?" Alec asked.

"I know."

"We have to be careful, Jace." As he said that, Alec's thumb caressed Jace's _parabatai_ rune under his shirt. "You have to be _discreet_."

"I know."

"No innuendos, no jokes, no trying anything in public-"

" _I know_."

Jace kissed him again, light and soft, to shut him up.

"I promise you I won't be a reckless idiot."

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](https://laufire.tumblr.com).


End file.
